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YEAR-END FIGURES RELEASED…
BASE AND ERA: MARKET WORTH £5 BILLION
VIDEO DWARFS MUSIC, GAMES
WONKA, DUNE, DEADPOOL SLUG IT OUT AS YEAR’S BIGGEST
GAME OF THRONES TOP TV SALES FOR 2024
MUSIC HITS RECORD NUMBERS AS GAMES SLIPS
DIGTAL AND PHYSICAL “COMPLEMENTARY”
BOX OFFICE HITS £1 BILLION AFTER “CHALLENGES”
WICKED BREAKS RECORDS AS PREMIUM RELEASE
BBC IS A CHRISTMAS WINNER
LIGHTBULB TAKES OUT THE TRASH
SPOTTED OUT AND ABOUTTRAILERS OF THE WEEK
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It was a good week for… Year-end figures – driven by digital and streaming – are up year-on-year…
It was a bad week for… Physical media saw sales slip, although Blu-ray was up YoY…
We’ve been watching… Seasonal cinema viewing included Nosferatu, We Live In Time and Conclave…
The release of year-end figures surrounding home entertainment is now as traditional as Auld Lang Syne on the stroke of midnight on January 1, and with the first few days of a return to work following the holiday period, both BASE and ERA had issued figures assessing the past 12 months of business, with the former releasing its first tranche of headline figures for the year – with more detailed analysis to come in the next few days (and in the next newsletter) – and the latter taking in music and games as well as video. Both sets have seen general trends in recent years continue – a march upwards in terms of size, with the growth being driven predominantly by streaming, coupled with further declines in physical, although there are even encouraging signs for disc-based product in some of the figures. Both come to the same conclusion – the video market was worth more than £5 billion in 2024, up 6.9 per cent last year. Revenue under the all-encompassing “digital” banner was up 7.5 per cent to £4.841.3 million, with physical down to £156.3 million, a fall of 7.9 per cent. The rest of the mammoth £5 billion is made up of physical rental, down just under 20 per cent to £4.5 million (although we would direct you to the last newsletter, where one of the UK’s surviving rental stores, Snips Movies on The Wirral, told The Raygun about its 2024, with Dave Wain talking about a strong year for rental). As ERA noted, almost 90 per cent of digital revenues now come from streaming subscriptions to Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV and Netflix. There was some cheer for physical though, as Blu-ray sales actually rose almost five per cent on 2023 figures, although it is still below the 2022 total.
ERA’s figures said the biggest title of the year was Deadpool & Wolverine with sales of 561,917, more than 80 per cent those sales were from the digital sphere. ERA chief Kim Bayley said: “More than ever before, entertainment is a visual industry and so it is no surprise that video is now the largest segment in entertainment. Subscription video services have transformed the viewing experience for millions. The challenge for video is to find a physical format which can do for the moving image what vinyl has done for music.” 
Figures from BASE now, and the trade organisation proclaimed Wonka as “the biggest home entertainment film of 2024 in the UK with 821k sales and rentals, or on Blu-ray or DVD”, with star Timothée Chalomet being the leading man of choice thanks to starring as the eponymous chocolatier and also in the second biggest title of the year, Dune: Part Two, which the sci-fi sequel also being the year’s biggest Blu-ray, earning £1.5m on the high definition format, with a further £500,000 in revenue coming from DVD. As BASE’s official statement noted: “Timothée Chalamet earned a staggering £123m across the top two titles of 2024 in the UK with home entertainment sales of Wonka and Dune: Part Two adding £19.5 million revenue to the £64 million Wonka UK box office, and the £39.5 million UK Box Office earned by Dune; Part Two. (As BASE noted: “This figure includes all sales and rentals of the film across Digital and Disc [EST, VOD, Blu-ray and DVD]. Official Charts Company measures individual content purchases on disc and digital, to rent, buy or own in the UK, unlike multi-content SVoD services.)
Other titles mentioned in dispatches by BASE included the biggest VOD title of the year Oppenheimer (487k rental transactions in 2024 and the third biggest overall alongside being the top digital renter); Deadpool & Wolverine, the fourth biggest title of the year according to BASE and the biggest EST title; Barbie, which sold a further 556k copies, making it the fifth overall and fourth biggest renter. BASE also highlights the EST potential for family titles, with both Inside Out 2 and Despicable Me 4 among the top five digital sellers. Over on TV, it was another year for the franchise that has dominated the sector for many years now. The report stated: “Game Of Thrones: House Of The Dragon S1ruled the TV disc charts for the second year, with a further 31k sales. And the second season was was second in the TV Disc chart, with 24k sales. Doctor Who had another epic year on physical, with combined sales of the Doctor Who titles selling more than 200k units in 2024, with a value of over £4.5 million.”
Commenting on the figures, BASE chief executive Liz Bales said: “Visual entertainment in the UK ended 2024 with a bang! In November the UK box office was up 78 per cent year-on-year with 13.24 million admissions, and home entertainment surpassed a value of £5 billion for the first time, the largest player in the £12 billion UK home entertainment sector. And home entertainment has already exploded out of the blocks in 2025: Universal’s Wicked was released at home on Friday January 3 and landed in the all-time EST top three for week one, based on just two days of sales. This promises to be another great year for visual entertainment audiences in the UK.”
Back to ERA, and the organisation’s music figures dominated many of the headlines about year-end entertainment figures – the retail association unveiled its figures before BASE – as streaming and the “retail-led vinyl revival”, buoyed by ERA’s Record Store Day, drove figures to a 20-year high and all-time record, ahead of the height of the CD market. The overall market for music was worth £2,389.8 million, which, as ERA said, saw it “overtaking the previous high of £2,221.7m achieved in 2001”. Physical sales on music were up more than six per cent to £330.1 million, with streaming up 7.8 per cent to £2,389.8 million. Downloads were down more than three per cent to £41.3 million. Games saw a big drop-off in physical sales, down 34.5 per cent to £324.4 million, while the overall market was down 4.4 per cent to £4,617.2 billion. Overall, the entertainment market was up 2.3 per cent to more than £12 billion, with some £11,193.7 million of that coming from digital, up 4.1 per cent, with overall physical worth £815.3 million, down almost 17 per cent.
ERA chief Kim Bayley said: “2024 was a banner year for music, with streaming and vinyl taking the sector to all-time-high records in both value and volume. This is the stunning culmination of music’s comeback which has seen sales more than double since their low point in 2013. We can now say definitively - music is back.With nearly 14 per cent of revenues still coming from physical, music shows the benefits of having a mixed physical-digital ecology. We continue to believe that digital and physical channels are complementary and vital for the health of the entertainment market overall.” ERA Chair Linda Walker added: “We are witnessing a fundamental shift in the dynamics of the entertainment business. Digital services and retailers have become the drivers of the market. For decades it was new release activity which most drove revenues. In 2024 subscription sales are now a far more significant factor.” 
We’ll have more year-end figures and more from BASE on the next newsletter, but also worth noting that UK theatrical figures showed total box office revenue for 2024 stood at £1,060,740,010, almost the same as 2023, but eight per cent up on 2022. It’s still down on pre-pandemic figures, but showed greater recovery in the final months of the year after barren months earlier in the year due to Hollywood strikes. Phil Clapp, Chief Executive of the UK Cinema Association commented: “While the early months of 2024 were undoubtedly challenging for cinema operators here in the UK as elsewhere, the upswing in admissions we saw here over the Summer and in particular during the closing months of the year confirm once again that when great films are available, audiences are ready to turn out in huge numbers for the big screen experience. As the film slate strengthens further into 2025 and beyond, we remain supremely optimistic that for all of its challenges, the last year has provided a solid foundation for further growth and recovery.” Andy Leyshon, Chief Executive of the Film Distributors’ Association was similarly upbeat on the 2024 performance and said: “Reaching box office parity with 2023 represents a decent overall performance for the UK and Ireland theatrical market. Amongst some notable highs, 2024 also had its challenges, but the last couple of months have shown us that cinema-going remains in rude health with audiences keen to see the huge variety of films on offer. With 2025 starting in similarly fine fettle, the year ahead looks packed full of promise for fans of the big screen.”
The BBC was one of the big Christmas winners, thanks to a raft of programming and it excelled on December 25, offering up the biggest programmes in terms of ratings and critical acclaim too. Chief among those was Gavin & Stacey and the final, final episode of the sitcom will be making its way to physical media via BBC Studios and Spirit on February 3, landing a week after another Christmas Day biggie from Doctor Who. Here’s BBC Studios’ Rob Crowe on the Beeb’s seasonal performance. He said: “It was a great Christmas Day for some truly wonderful British TV content, with Gavin & Stacey: The Finale leading the way as the most watched programme on the day. If anyone hasn't seen it then I highly recommend it, it was a funny and moving finale for this much loved series, which we will be bringing out on DVD at the start of February. Earlier in the day we also had the new Doctor Who Christmas Special, Joy to the World. This also featured in the top 5 most watched programmes, and is sure to be a hit with fans when released on DVD later this month. And as if that wasn't enough, we had another top 5 title in the form of Call the Midwife Series 14 Episode 1 – we’ll be bringing the full series of the ever-popular period drama to DVD in March.”
It’s a busy start to the year for indie Lightbulb Film Distribution, which is injecting a new lease of life into its breakthrough hit of 2024 as well as releasing a new cult film in the making into cinemas ahead of a home entertainment bow. Its biggie from last year is, of course, prime cult title Hundreds Of Beavers and the film – and the creative force behind this no-budget comedy – will be touring the UK later in January through to May; more on this next week. And Friday January 10 saw a theatrical bow for Street Trash, a new take on a 1980s VHS-friendly horror classic, with a high profile screening taking place at the Prince Charles Cinema in the heart of London. Director Ryan Kruger flew in to introduce the film and take part in a Q&A afterwards. The original Street Trash, complete with plenty of over-the-top gory scenes as a toxic drink lays waste to the homeless who buy it from a Brooklyn liquor store, fell foul of the BBFC, not least because the drink literally melts anyone who drinks it and for a scene where hobos play catch with some severed private parts. The new take adds a dystopian feel to it as evil forces plan to wipe out the homeless population of a divided society. As well as being aided by the theatrical release, the February home entertainment bow for Street Trash will be further boosted by Lightbulb including not just the reimagined version, but the original film, both complete with extras, in the Blu-ray package. The original is currently out of circulation and is fetching a pretty price on the Internet, which should further boost demand. Commenting on the release, Lightbulb’s Peter Thompson said: "We are thrilled to be bringing Street Trash to audiences in the UK & Ireland. Kruger’s new film is just as gloopy and depraved as the original, and the social commentary is arguably even more relevant today."
SPOTTED OUT AND ABOUT
Amazing bit of Nosferatu point of sale in our local Picturehouse (the Finsbury Park one but saw this elsewhere too)…
TRAILERS OF THE WEEK
Sight and Sound’s greatest ever, due at cinemas and then Blu-ray this year…
Due from MUBI…
That Street Trash trailer…
Due from Altitude, complete with Tom Ze n the trailer…
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